Monday, April 02, 2012

Sometimes a Fuddy but always a Duddy

I hate auto-tuned, data-stick determined techno music. Not the radio-friendly boy-band pop stuff with a catchy melody (how OLD do I sound) that is perfect to run to, but the mindless, far-too-loud Doof Doof electronic excrement that some backwards cap-wearing* Meat Head is playing at eyeball-aching volume from his car.

This vehicle is invariably over-accessorised indicating that it's the most expensive purchase of the Meat Head's life.

If he owned a business or a home, they'd be where his extra cash would go, not on mud flaps with nude ladies silhouetted in white; an extra brake light where his actual back window should be or a 'spoiler' to convince us that his second hand sedan is actually race track-worthy.

And yet, when the Meat Head is idling at the traffic lights jerking his neck forward-and-back, forward-and-back pigeon-style to his over-sized sound system and Milly and I are walking past on the footpath, my steps automatically alter so that they become perfectly in sync with the Doof Doof beat.

For that tiny split second before shame sets in, I'm briefly impressed that yes, for a white honky I do have some sense of natural rhythm. If only it would reveal itself at weddings and parties - witnessed by people that I like and respect, if not love - and not out in the street holding a still-warm poo bag looking for a rubbish bin.

Even if I actively try to step out of rhythm, the end result is an overly self-consciously wonky walk that appears as though I've forgotten all the skills needed to move forwards without what appears to be a series of small electric shocks and an arse wrestling my hips for solo status. And if the achievement means that I am no longer at one with the Meat Head's music it's at the expense of my personal dignity. Looking like I've just peed my pants and had my knee caps screwed on backwards whilst still grappling a plastic poop sack is indeed the slimmest of moral victories.

It is therefore easiest, at forty three - even if the sound of the hell song that's emanating from the car and rattling the gutter grate causes bile to flood the back of my throat and agonising shudders across my shoulders - to walk to his beat.

Doesn't help that Milly wags her tail in time, too.

* or, of late, sideways-wearing, over-sized American trucker-style of cap. Hilariously out of place on a chinless Aussie bogan or snake hipped Genevoise goober.

I moaned about "dance cars" before. And for a shameful second I have been tempted to purchase a similarly expensive sound system for my old banger and go searching for such cars so that I can neutralise their dreadful music with some highly offensive heavy metal!

The older you get the more modern music doesn't make sense. I can't stand doof doof or rap. Luckily our neighbours don't have it blaring but they make up with barking dogs. I wear my cap back to front on the way home from my morning walk to keep the sun off my neck as the sun is rising behind me. I often wonder what people think of me.....but don't care. I'm old enough not to be bothered.

That car part in the first picture looks suitably startled at the sounds emanating from the rest of the car. I've done the walk in time thing too, many many times. I just can't help it. Sometimes I've practically marched down a street because of the music I'm hearing, other times I've danced along...it's just the beat is so contagious. I bet you dance around the kitchen table too.

Oh Kath, Meatloaf is really good, it is heavy rock opera, and the jim steinman words are so different, I was fortunate to see him in Concert in the early 80s, just goes to show we all have different tastes. I think the techno is mindless though no melody at all! I must be getting old

Love the dog wearing the sweater in the photograph. I wonder whether it was someone's girlfriend - or mother? who knitted it. Doof Doof music resounding across the suburbs is increasingly part of the nightmare of city life, I think.